Something unprecedented is happening in the House of Representatives. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been put up against a wall by members of his own party who are refusing to assent to regular order and insist on blocking even routine bills.
There's no grand design to this obstructionism. It's tantrum-throwing at its most infantile. The dozen or so rebels say they want less federal spending and a more secure border. So do we all. The question is how to achieve those goals, and rather than strutting in front of TV cameras and railing against the budget, perhaps they should do the scut work necessary to put their mouth where our money is.
It's hard to work your will in Congress. It takes single-minded determination, not posturing for the folks back home. The House rebels are making it impossible for Johnson to govern in a traditional fashion. Instead, he's being forced to govern in a very untraditional way.
Johnson has been forced to work with Democrats to get important legislation like passage of the budget done. It's not a choice. It's a matter of necessity. It's either work with the Democrats or shut down the government.
Johnson's no fool. He knows that his neck is already on the chopping block. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has offered a "motion to vacate" the speaker's chair. She's ready to swing the ax at the first opportunity.
So Johnson is treading carefully. The showdown might come in April when a motion to bring funding for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan comes to the floor.
“Democrats have repeatedly made clear that we will find bipartisan common ground with our Republican colleagues on any issue, whenever and wherever possible, to take care of the business of the American people,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said at a news conference last week.
The Senate approved the $95 billion funding bill with nothing to address the border crisis. Johnson is going to use some parliamentary maneuvers to bring the legislation to the floor over the objections of many Republicans.
The measure will pass easily if about 150 Democrats vote for it. And therein lies Johnson's dilemma.
More than 10 times in just five months as speaker, Johnson turned to the suspension calendar to pass important legislation that never before would have been considered in such a manner.
Five different bills funding the government and avoiding shutdowns won approval under this unusual technique, as did a couple that kept the Federal Aviation Administration’s authority going and another outlining annual policy provisions for the Pentagon.
Johnson doesn't want to touch the Senate foreign aid bill.
“We welcome all ongoing member deliberations over the next two weeks as the House works its will on this matter,” Johnson said.
Johnson will have to include some kind of border security measures to even get the foreign aid bill to the floor. He's been insisting for months that the starting point for negotiations on the border is the GOP bill. But Democrats have already turned thumbs down at the border bill the GOP passed last summer. Even many Republican senators balked at some of the more extreme elements of the bill.
So it's going to be another suspension of the rules that will bring the aid package to the floor. And Johnson will once again take a long walk off a short plank to get it passed with Democratic help.
Johnson might try to add to the Senate bill some conservative policy riders related to the border crisis or on energy policy. He might try to slash the amount of funds that go toward Ukraine, or to modify those dollars into a loan program that might be repaid.
But those options are extreme long shots, because each leader knows that far-right lawmakers who back ex-president Donald Trump will block the normal parliamentary path for approving whatever Johnson comes up with via simple majority.
The biggest advantage Johnson has is that Republicans don't have a clue about who would replace him if he was ousted. Plus, even some of the rebels are tired of drama. Their colleagues are certainly sick of it.
That doesn't mean anything, however, except that Democrats are already acting as if they've won a majority in 2024.
